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Academic Freedom
Academic Freedom describes the right to intellectual inquiry autonomous of popular approval. Populist rage about the opinions of faculty members critical of established institutions is a recurring problem in many societies, including the United States. Among the reasons for thar rage is the conviction that exposure to ideas in the classroom is the same as the imposition of ideas in the classroom. For example, consider the complaint of the anonymous and perhaps fictional Ralphie the Buffalo, who may or may not be a student at the University of Colorado, Boulder: What I'm Learning in my Political Science Class. Poor unmanly little Ralphie whines that the professor's asides are not subject to an 'equal time' rule. Conservatives normally oppose those. But then when have conservatives ever felt the need to be consistent? Here is none other than future U.S. President Ronald Wilson Reagan speaking about the importance of academic freedom, in 1957: :: We have a vast system of public education in this country, a network of great state universities and colleges and none of us would have it otherwise. But there are those among us who urge expansion of this system until all education is by way of tax-supported institutions. Today we enjoy academic freedom in America as it is enjoyed nowhere else in the world. But this pattern was established by the independent secular and church colleges of our land, schools like Eureka. Down through the years these colleges and universities have maintained intellectual freedom because they were beholden to no political group, for when politics control the purse strings, they also control the policy. No one advocates the elimination of our tax-supported universities, but we should never forget that their academic freedom is assured only so long as we have the leavening influence of hundreds of privately endowed colleges and universities throughout the land. So crucial for a free society is academic freedom that even Mike Gonzalez at the Heritage Foundation was wont to comment that, "...when universities do not stay true to their core mission of the free pursuit of facts, they indoctrinate rather than educate..." (Source: "China's Public Opinion Warfare: How Our Culture Industry learned to Stop Worrying and Love the PRC" The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder no. 2986. Feb. 5, 2015). One problem with conservative bombast about academic freedom is that they often prefer it in principle rather than in practice. Another is that often fail to appreciate the broad scope of freedom necessary to realize the social benefits of academia. Academic freedom entails intellectual dissent. The efforts to silence faculty are so long standing that it has earned a place in American popular culture. The value of unrestricted intellectual inquiry is defended by mild mannered English professor Tommie Turner, played by Henry Fonda, in the 1940 play by James Thurber and Elliott Nughent in their 1940 play The Male Animal, which was adapted in the 1942 film The Male Animal. Seems that the philistine trustees of Midwestern University, led by Trustee Ed Keller, have forced three teachers out of their jobs for being suspected Reds. See Red Scare. Keller also threatens Professor Turner because he plans to read jailhouse letter written by Bartolemeo Vanzetti. See also the Speeches by Sacco and Vanzetti to the Court at the Time of Sentencing (April 9, 1927 at the Dedham Court House) Academic freedom is imperiled when views held by faculty are censored. For example, the Center for Jewish Life at Princeton University submitted to political pressure from the Israeli government's Jewish Agency to exclude Princeton faculty member Max Weiss from participating in a proposed panel on the 2014 slaughter in Gaza. Weiss is a tenured faculty member with a joint appointment to the departments of History and Near Eastern Studies. On February 16, 2015, the University of Rome subjected Israeli revisionist historian Ilan Pappe to a last minute cancellation of permission to ise its prestigious Center for Italian and French Studies for a debate on the use and abuse of identity in Europe and the Middle East. Links * Political Lexicon * Black List * Civil Liberties * RateMyProfessors.com * Uncivil * Visiting Professor Scam